1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an agricultural seed planter and, more particularly, to a microprocessor controlled seed planter for continuously planting plots from different seed sources.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of seed planters for agricultural purposes is well known. These planters typically are used to plant an entire field with a single type of seed. There are, however, instances where it is desirable to plant a variety of seed types in the same field. For example, in research applications it is often desirable to plant a few rows of several genera of seed in order to evaluate the performances of each genus.
Obviously each type of seed must be planted without contamination by any other type of seed. To do this, the seeds of a previous plot must be removed from the planter before new seed is loaded into the planter and subsequently planted. One approach to accomplishing this has been to provide a planter with means for continuing to deposit seeds onto the ground while the planter is stationary. In this way the planter can be stopped at the end of planting one type of seed and nay excess seed left in the planter is deposited on the ground at the end of the row and then the new type of seed to be planted is loaded into the planter. A problem with the above approach is that this process is time consuming and burdensome because it requires the planter to be stopped at the end of every row to clean out the excess seed and load new seed.
Another approach which has been employed to plant multiple varieties of seeds in the same field is the use of cone planters. All the seeds in a cone planter are planted after one revolution of the cone and then new seeds are loaded to be planted in the next plot. In this way continuous planting of a variety of seeds is accomplished. The major problem with this approach, however, is that there is not an even distribution of seeds. Therefore, it is common to over plant the seed plots and then later return and physically thin the plots of excess plants. This approach is time consuming, labor intensive and may result in damage to the plants remaining in the field.